Cuban authorities have arrested 17 people in connection with what they described as a network to recruit Cuban nationals to fight for Russia in Ukraine.

The head of criminal investigations for Cuba’s Interior Ministry, César Rodríguez, said late Thursday on state media that at least three of the 17 arrested are part of recruitment efforts inside the island country.

He did not identify the alleged members of the network but said they had previous criminal records. Some families started speaking up about the case on Friday, and at least one mother said that her son was promised a job in construction in Russia.

Cuba’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that the government had detected a network operating from Russia to recruit Cuban citizens living both in Russia and in Cuba to fight in Ukraine. It said authorities were working “to neutralize and dismantle” the network but gave no details.

“Cuba is not part of the war in Ukraine,” the Foreign Ministry said in a news release.

Cuba and Russia are political allies and Cubans do not require a visa to travel to Russia. Many go there to study or to work.

In May 2023, a newspaper in the Russian region of Ryazan, about 100 miles (62 kilometers) southeast of Moscow, reported from a military enlistment office there that “several citizens of the Cuba Republic” signed up to join the army. The Ryazanskiye Vedomosti newspaper quoted some Cubans as saying they were there to help Russia “complete tasks in the special military operation zone.” It also said “some of them in the future would like to become Russian citizens.”

In Havana, prosecutor José Luis Reyes told state TV that suspects are being investigated for crimes, including being a mercenary or recruiting mercenaries, and could face sentences of up to 30 years or life in prison, or even the death penalty.

Marilin Vinent, 60, said Friday that her son Dannys Castillo, 27, is one of the Cubans recruited in Russia.

At her home in Havana, she said her son and other Cubans traveled at the end of July to Russia after being promised work in a construction job. “They were all deceived,” she said.

Vinent showed reporters photos of her son in her cellphone, including some of him dressed in military fatigues.

She said that her son told her he had accepted the offer to go to Russia because he wanted to economically help the family, as the island is suffering an economic crisis, with people facing shortages of some products.

“I don’t know if my son is alive. We don’t know anything,” she said. “What I would like is to talk to him.”

The U.S. State Department said in a statement that it’s aware of the reports. “We are deeply concerned that young Cubans may have been deceived and recruited to fight for Russia in its brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and we continue to monitor this situation closely,” it said.

Russian law allows foreign nationals to enlist in its army, after signing a contract with the Defense Ministry.

Since September 2022, foreigners who have served in the Russian army for at least one year are allowed to apply for Russian citizenship in a simplified procedure, without obtaining a residency permit first.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said earlier in September that the city was setting up “infrastructure to assist the Russian Defense Ministry in facilitating the enlistment of foreign nationals” in the capital’s main government office for migrants.

Last month, Russian media reported cases of authorities refusing to accept citizenship applications from Tajik nationals until they sign a contract with the Defense Ministry and enlist in the army. And in an online statement last week, the British Defense Ministry said there are “at least six million migrants from Central Asia in Russia, which the Kremlin likely sees as potential recruits.”

On X, a social media platform previously known as Twitter, the ministry said that “exploiting foreign nationals allows the Kremlin to acquire additional personnel for its war effort in the face of mounting casualties.”

It also noted that there have been online adds seeking recruits for the Russian army in Armenia and Kazakhstan.

Source: Consumer News Business Channel

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On July 6, law enforcement in Germany and the Netherlands arrested nine Central Asians on terrorism-related charges. In Germany, five Tajik nationals, one Kyrgyz citizen, and one Turkmenistani citizen were arrested in the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia for allegedly creating and participating in a local terrorist organization and supporting Islamic State (IS). In the Netherlands, a married couple—a Tajik husband and Kyrgyz wife—were also arrested in Eindhoven and Breda. Both are suspected of plotting terrorist attacks, with the husband also suspected of IS membership (Kaktus Media, July 6).

Since 2022, the suspects have been collecting money for IS and running a terrorist cell in Germany. They were also probing possible places for attacks and trying to acquire weapons in that country. The Dutch and German authorities were in contact with each other during the investigations, as the suspects in the two countries collaborated in plotting attacks. All nine of the suspects arrived from Ukraine in 2022 as refugees after the Russian invasion (Asiaplus.tj, July 6). Most likely, however, they met each other in Syria or Iraq, where IS controlled vast amounts of territory between 2014 and 2019—and attracted foreign jihadists from around the world, including Central Asia.

IS is now largely defeated in Syria and Iraq. However, its members are scattered around the world and able to exploit their networks and skills to launch attacks elsewhere. The arrests in Germany and the Netherlands show that IS’s legacy lives on and its members and loyalists still present a threat to security in Europe.

Central Asian Foreign Fighters in IS ranks

Between 2011 and 2017, approximately 5,000 people from the five Central Asian states traveled to Syria and Iraq to join IS and other jihadist organizations (Kursiv Media, November 1, 2018). These foreign fighters could be divided into two contingents: the first fought within IS ranks, and the second fought in the ranks of groups linked with al-Qaeda’s affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra. Central Asian foreign fighters in IS ranks were based around al-Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq. Perhaps the most notorious Central Asian foreign fighter was Tajik national Gulmurod Khalimov, who joined IS in 2015. Prior to joining IS, he was the head of a SWAT team in Tajikistan. Following the death of Abu Umar Shishani in 2016, he was appointed as IS’s minister of war (Kloop.kg, September 5, 2016).

IS has used and inspired its Central Asian members and sympathizers to carry out attacks in various parts of the world. Kyrgyz and Tajik nationals were reported to have been involved in the Istanbul airport attack in 2016, for example (Kloop.kg, July 5, 2016). An Uzbek national, Abdulgadir Masharipov, also carried out an attack at a nightclub in Istanbul in January 2017, killing 39 people (Tass.ru, January 8, 2017). Between 2017 and 2018, IS sympathizers and recruits from Central Asia carried out other vehicular, truck-ramming, and knife attacks in New York, Stockholm, and Tajikistan’s Khatlon province, respectively, killing and injuring dozens. These attacks demonstrated that the IS threat had moved outside of Syria and Iraq’s national borders, becoming a global security issue.

Fleeing to Ukraine and Beyond

IS’s loss of its last stronghold in Syria in 2019 presented IS members with four options: remaining in the still-unstable areas of Syria and Iraq; returning to their home countries; relocating to other theaters of conflict, such as Afghanistan; or fleeing to countries where they would be relatively safe from prosecution and could start a new life—or otherwise wait until new opportunities arose. The final option has been the most compelling for Central Asian militants.

Central Asian foreign fighters began leaving IS ranks as early as 2016, after becoming disillusioned with the organization’s excessive brutality and the perceived cynical behavior of its members. Some of these fighters traveled to Ukraine on their own, while others were deported by Turkish authorities and chose Ukraine as their destination point. [1] Either way, those who chose Ukraine perceived it as a safe haven, with many fellow Russian speakers and a sizable Muslim community into which they could readily integrate (Hromadske.ua, July 17, 2017).

However, another important factor in favor of relocating to Ukraine was the country’s porous borders and the ability to obtain fake identities with new passports (Hromadske.ua, July 17, 2017). By mid-2017, several hundred IS members had moved to Ukraine, including Georgian national Tsezar Tohosashvilli, who served as the deputy to IS’s former minister of war, Abu Umar Shishani. However, he was arrested by Ukraine’s national security service in 2019 with fake documents (Zaborona, December 2, 2020; Militant Leadership Monitor, January 3, 2020).

Conclusion

In the case of the nine Central Asians arrested in Germany and the Netherlands, residence in Ukraine allowed them to relocate to Europe as “refugees.” The fact that nationals of three different Central Asian countries established a terrorist network in Europe and plotted attacks together shows their shared past as IS members continued after the fall of IS’s “territorial caliphate.” Such Central Asian IS veterans may be relatively few in number, but still present a threat to European security from the shadows.

Source: James Town

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